


floorboards

by Aenqa



Category: Sly Cooper (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Explicit Language, F/M, Introspection, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 09:36:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17221454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aenqa/pseuds/Aenqa
Summary: as much as he loves the adrenaline rush, the pure elation of a heist gone exactly wrong, there are times where sly needs a night to himself, some time to stretch his muscles without a timer on his wrist and a voice in his ear. this is one of those nights.





	floorboards

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this burning a hole in my computer for close to a year, so I decided 'fuck it' and to post it somewhere on the chance someone else might like it. it's not much more than an exercise in getting into the head of a character that's interested me since I was a kid, but hey!. it takes place after sly 2 but it was also written congruently with another sly piece I've been working on - so if some details don't make sense, that would be why. thanks for reading!

as much as he loves the adrenaline rush, the pure elation of a heist gone exactly wrong, there are times where sly needs a night to himself, some time to stretch his muscles without a timer on his wrist and a voice in his ear. this is one of those nights. after bentley and murray have gone to bed, he slips out the window of his bedroom and clambers up onto the roof. it’s little flairs like this that he relishes in sometimes. there’s nothing stopping him from leaving out the front door, donning some easy disguise and walking through the streets of paris entirely undetected – and sometimes, this is also what he wants – but it’s the reminder that he can do these things, these things other people are too scared and too unskilled to do, that pleases him.

the paris air is crisp and chill. he crouches on the roof of their small house for a moment and lets the wind blow through his fur, closing his eyes and feeling out the night. the wind is strong enough to wake him up but not strong enough to bite. he opens his eyes and feels himself grin, unbidden. it’s a night for a run.

he jumps onto the next rooftop and starts his usual progression through town, leaping over alleys and swinging across roads. below, the nightlife of paris ebbs and flows according to the streets, quiet neighborhoods lying dormant and dark, bustling streets flowing with people too focused on their drinks to see a dark shape flitting momentarily against the stars. sly makes a particularly difficult landing on a rope holding up a banner and takes a moment to breathe, his heart pounding pleasantly in his chest. he surveys the street below him. drunks are stumbling out or into bars, groups of young couples are nervously flitting from place to place, and a few quiet loners make their way through the pedestrian crowds. 

sly used to fit into these scenes more than he does now. when he was seventeen, eighteen, he would spend time in bars, flirting with girls and picking pockets to buy them drinks. it’s not like he’s too old to join them now, either – he has to remind himself sometimes that he’s still twenty-two, barely an adult by some standards. but he feels older, now. he’s faced down the entity that killed his parents – and then he did it again. he has the scars to prove it, and so do his friends. he feels detached from this picture, now, full of neon and anxiety and attempts at confidence. he would feel ill at ease, he would feel imposturous. more imposturous than usual. he only stays here for a moment longer before hooking his cane around the rope, dropping his weight and sliding to the next building. 

as he continues on the tour of the city he has grown to know so well, slipping from rooftop to rooftop and staying in the shadows, he wonders if other coopers have felt similarly… isolated. logically, he knows he must be one of the most isolated coopers of all. most were taught by their parents well into adulthood. even once clockwerk began his work, coopers would manage to survive long enough to pass down everything to their children. and the constancy of children – of continuing the cooper line – meant most, if not all, had a husband or wife, someone to keep them company. sly – orphaned almost immediately – was certainly one of the loneliest coopers – even accounting for the friends that had become his brothers. 

he never lets himself dwell on stuff like this, but it’s difficult, with the moon so dim and shadows long, to stop his mind from drifting, from carrying him to the places he is usually able to distract himself from. he decides to refocus himself by scaling one of the more difficult buildings in the city – a large clock tower made entirely of smooth stone, built recently, difficult to find footholds. even this proves less of a challenge than it did the first time. he remembers his mistakes, corrects for them, and finds himself at the top in almost no time at all, not long enough to banish those tendrils of thought. tired, he perches at the top and looks out over the city, resigning himself to the melancholy that hovers at the edges of his thoughts.

he knows, in moments like this, where he sees his life zoomed out as he currently sees the city, that he must, under any and all circumstances, stop thinking so much about carmelita fox. and he does think about her quite constantly. if anything, the events leading up to the final defeat of clockwerk only cemented her further in his thoughts. everything that happened – the dance in india – seeing her arrested – trying to save her from the contessa – helping her escape from interpol – it had revealed a different side to her every time, a side that wasn’t entirely black and white, or otherwise, a side that was inherently _good_ , intrinsically moral. he knows that even though she still wants him arrested, wants him put in jail, that she sees him as a real person, worthy of being alive. 

and as much as he once idealized her, romanticized her, flirted with her in a way that was more exaggeration than actualization, she is now a breathing, actual person to him, as well. a person who tosses in her sleep. who cries out while being hurt. who gives him five second head starts. sly looks down at his cane and picks at the place where the wood meets the metal, as he tends to do when he gets nervous or contemplative – emotions that often run congruently. 

the wind blows a little harder against his back and he steadies himself against his perch on the top of the clock. he looks down and, in a way that doesn’t often happen, feels a little lurch to see how far away from the ground he is. he has his glider on – could equip it at a moment’s notice if the wind were to get a little too strong. but he is sitting where few people will ever sit – if any. he is seeing something most people would never dream of seeing – even behind a few layers of protective glass.

sometimes he resents this legacy that he has been born into, and for a moment, this feeling resonates within him, as he grips the edge of the clock tower, peering bitterly towards the normal people, drinking normal beer with their normal friends in a neon drenched street in paris. because the reason he must stop thinking about carmelita is because he will never be with her. _it’s an infatuation,_ he tells himself, even though he knows, somewhere, that what he feels for her is more than an infatuation. _it’s an infatuation that can never be reality,_ he insists. because even if he were to want to change. to come to the other side of the law. why would she ever want him? he has done nothing but antagonize and belittle her throughout her career. he knows: she sees him as a criminal in need of reformation, no more. he feels a sick twist in his stomach. whatever chemistry – whatever attraction – he feels between them, is useless, is powerless in the face of their mutual circumstance. she proves that it is every time she points that shock pistol at him. he suddenly remembers the feeling of being hit with that shock pistol at point-blank range by the contessa and flinches, rubbing the back of his head. 

this is fucked. he is so fucked. and carmelita deserves someone who isn’t so fucked in the head at 22 years of age.

the wind pushes insistently at his back and this time he lets it push him over the edge. he free falls in the air for just a second before engaging his glider and coming to an easy stop at the cobblestone street.

he thought he needed a night out, and maybe he did – maybe these are the thoughts he needs to be having more often. but right now, he doesn’t feel good, he just feels conflicted. so he does exactly what he knows how to do – he climbs his way onto a rooftop and he runs home that way, ducking a few security guards for various bars and museums in the process, ignoring, this time, the busiest parts of the streets, with their voices and reminders, until he makes it back to his bedroom window, still ajar. he slips in and goes directly into bed, where he watches the sky for a while longer before eventually falling asleep. as usual, bentley and murray notice nothing of the entire endeavor. they don’t hear a single floorboard creak.


End file.
